Starhawk by Jack McDevitt Page A

thought about the moment after the lights went out. They’d been sitting in the Cosmopolitan in Atlanta, and he’d been about to leave on a two-month flight. So he’d taken the plunge. But she had declined. He never saw her again after that night.
    He regretted that he’d never had a family. It hadn’t been by design. He’d just been too busy. Or maybe because the right woman had never shown up. Or because, when she had, he hadn’t been able to hang on to her. Now, somehow, it seemed as if those details didn’t really matter very much.
    And why, just now, was he entertaining thoughts like these?
    Â * * * 
    â€œHOW’D IT GO?” Joshua asked when he reentered the
Gremlin
.
    â€œGood. Everything’s under control.” He glanced at the four remaining students. “We can only take three on this next run.”
    One of them would have to wait. The blonde Priscilla had seen in the photo stepped forward. “I’ll stay,” she said. Her name was Kareema. There was a brief debate while the others also volunteered to wait. But in the end, Kareema got the nod. The others strapped on the belts and pulled the air tanks onto their shoulders.
    Â * * * 
    FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, Jake returned to pick up the last of the students. He asked Joshua if he wanted to escort his last student.
    â€œIt’s okay,” he said. “You’re doing fine, Jake.”
    Jake shrugged. “I thought you might want to say something to them. Just in case.”
    â€œNot a good idea,” he said. “It would scare the devil out of them. Don’t worry. We’re not going down with this thing.”
    When it was time to go, Kareema hugged Shahlah. “Good luck,” the student said. Then she turned to Jake. “Don’t let them stay too long.”
    â€œThank you, Kareema,” said Josh. “We’ll be fine.”
    â€œWe’ll join you in a couple of hours,” said Shahlah.
    Finally, they activated the force fields, went into the air lock, and crossed to the
Copperhead
.
    Â * * * 
    WHEN HE’D RETURNED to the
Gremlin
, Shahlah informed him that Joshua had gone below to get pictures of the damage. “He’s been transmitting everything back to Union.”
    â€œWell,” he said, “I hope they got the idiot who did this.”
    â€œLet’s also hope we all get home okay.”
    â€œAmen to that.”
    â€œI’ve got a question for you, Jake.”
    â€œFire away, kid.”
    â€œWhat exactly are our chances of surviving this?”
    â€œI think we’ll be all right.”
    â€œThat sounds fairly tentative.” She took a deep breath. “Josh’s been evasive about it. He says the right things, but his eyes are telling me something else. Be straight with me.”
    â€œWe should get through it okay,” he said. “We can’t be sure about anything until we see when and where the
Thompson
shows up.”
    â€œAll right.” She read his eyes. “Thanks. Joshua kept saying there was nothing to worry about. I knew that wasn’t true.”
    â€œWhat did the girls think of the monument?” Jake asked. “I don’t guess they got a chance to enjoy it.”
    â€œNot really. I’ll tell you what they
did
get excited about, though. The animals down there.” She pointed at the deck, meaning, of course, the surface of Barton’s World.
    â€œYou really think so?”
    â€œAre you serious? They’ve got big furry creatures. The size of mastodons. And whole herds of animals that look like pandas. And giant snaky things that make your skin crawl.” She led the way onto the bridge, looking for something. “He set a countdown running here somewhere. How long we had before we could expect to go down.”
    Shahlah touched a pad, and the AI responded: “It would be prudent to stay no longer than forty-five